Okay, so… Raylan, the latest from the coolest cat in American words has a complex history. US Marshal Raylan Givens made his first appearance in Elmore Leonard’s Pronto, (1993) and next in Riding the Rap (1995), but it wasn’t till the short story Fire in the Hole that Raylan got center stage in a story. Really, Pronto and Riding the Rap were primarily Harry Arno’s books , though it only makes marketing sense to make them Raylan Givens #’s 1&2, but really we could call Riding the Rap Dawn Navarro #1 and Road Dogs Navarro #2, or Cundo Rey #2 after LaBrava (hey I thought Cundo died in La Brava… but then I thought Boyd Crowder died in Fire in the Hole. Surprise!), or Jack Foley #2 after Out of Sight, or Karen Sisco #2 after Out of Sight - which itself seemed like a fleshing out of Sisco’s first appearance in the short story Karen Makes Out and went on to be the basis of a television show (Karen Sisco) produced by Graham Yost… and now we’ve come nearly full circle as Raylan the character enjoys parallel tracked lives in the brand new Raylan the book and in, the currently running, season three of Justified (produced by Graham Yost) and based on the short story Fire in the Hole.*
Regardless of the origins, the current and slightly alternate universes of Leonard’s books and the FX television series have much improved upon and fleshed out Givens’ character and defined his world. Raylan is the first novel-length Givens story (or stories, three really) from Leonard set in Kentucky and pits Givens’ interests against (among others) those of a pair of weed growin brothers with higher aspirations Dickie and Coover Crowe – not to be confused with the weed growin brothers Dickie and Coover Bennett from Justified's Second Season, nor with Dewey Crowe – the hapless low-hanging-fruit variety of bluegrass criminality embodied by Damon Herriman throughout Justified’s three seasons. And don’t go mixing up Raylan’s Carol Conlon and Justified Season 2’s Carol Johnson, you’ll just hurt yourself unnecessarily. Enjoy each incarnation for what they are and if one feels eerily familiar, and if you’ve come to rely on and trust in one, don’t get too comfortable when sampling the other – many an unsuspecting reader/viewer has had the rug yanked out from under them that way.
As much as I enjoyed the first season of Justified, the second was ever so much more satisfying – loved the heavier serialized element, and the ensemble only got stronger, particularly with Margo Martindale and Jeremy Davies (but really, the whole Bennett clan were excellent). Likewise, as much as I enjoyed Pronto and Riding the Rap, Raylan is far more satisfying as a Givens book than its predecessors.
*What did I miss in that paragraph?
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
